Tatau
by Sandman's Dream Catcher
Summary: Gaara gets a tattoo. AU. One-shot.


**Unbeta'd my friends. So I do apologize in advance for any errors. **

* * *

_Tatau_

* * *

"How about this one?"

Gaara stared blankly at the image of a panda that was held (shoved) in front of him. He had just finished perusing through Celtic symbols from an artist's portfolio, and was about to move on to Hebrew script when his brother decided to 'help' him out. _After all_, Kankuro thought, _it was little bro's first tattoo._

Kankuro continued to wave the image up against Gaara's nose.

"Think about it! Small. . . but could definitely be enlarged if you want it bigger! Plus, it's cute, cuddly, and chicks dig that kind of stuff." He finished off his speech with a devilish grin.

Gaara wasn't buying it though. He knew that his sister had put him up to this. He wasn't blind to the frowns she had sent his way when he first mentioned the idea of getting a tattoo on his seventeenth birthday. And she thought having the imbecile accompany him to try to dissuade him would work. _How foolish, _he thought.

Minutes later, Kankuro pulls out another image, this time of cartoon raccoon fighting a fox. He goes on and on about the two creatures being best friends yet enemies, and how they banded together to save the world.

_This is ridiculous, _Gaara thought, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. When the redhead still wouldn't look at the picture, the brunette rolled up a booklet from the table, fashioned it into a weapon, and used it to whack him in the back of the head. "Oi!"

The redhead scowled his displeasure, patience wearing thin. He crossed then uncrossed his arms to sink fully back into his chair, but not before pushing his older brother off his chair with one shove. Kankuro face planted, kissing the bleached floor within seconds. From his spot on the floor, Kankuro muttered obscenities all the while glaring at Gaara who was busy flipping through more booklets. He stood up, stopping short from wiping invisible dust off his jacket when he heard someone -a _feminine_ someone- clear their throat from behind him. _Shit, I forgot about Temari! _

It's like someone turned up the A/C in the building, and instantly the room dropped ten degrees. He gulped, shivering in his place before slowly turning around to greet their older sister, Temari. The blonde stood casually, leaning on one leg, with her hands on her hips as she sent both her brothers a disapproving stare. Kankuro, who proceeded to sheepishly scratch the back of his neck, offered her his chair by Gaara before clumsily finding a new one. Gaara remained unfazed by his sister's glare even as she took a seat next to him.

"Well?"

"Well, aren't you going to say 'hi' to your beloved sister?" Her gaze moved expectedly from Kankuro to Gaara in irritation, an unspoken promise of death clearly laced through her tone if they dared cross her.

"More like wicked witch of the..." Kankuro started to grumble under his breath and stopped when he noticed one of Temari's eyes twitch, before both flashed dangerously as they flickered back to him. _Wrong answer._

He panicked. "Temari! Didn't see you there- I mean- I did see you there. Just that- Don't you just _love_, what's been done to the place." He gestured frantically to the renovated establishment, "So fresh and open, definitely much cleaner than the last time I've been-" she cracked her knuckles, "oh, would you look at that, a bird! I've always wanted a bird... tattoo! Here... On my-" Kankuro voice cut off as soon as he walked away in a brisk pace to the other side of the room, where designs of various images of winged creatures hung on the wall. That left only Gaara and Temari sitting side by side in the waiting area of the shop.

Gaara had ignored his brother's departure to flip through more designs. So far not one seeming to catch his eye.

"What about you, aren't you going to say 'hi' either?"

He just nodded in acknowledgement towards her direction to Temari's exasperation. She huffed "Boys..." which only made him smirk. Minutes later he heard her again, this time trying to start a conversation.

"By the way, Happy Birthday."

Gaara grunted as thanks.

She smiled at his antics. "So a tattoo, huh?" She began, causally.

Silence. Followed by several pages being flipped in the portfolio he was looking at. She was not deterred though.

"It's permanent..." She remarked.

"Hn." Which can be translated to mean many things, but for this occasion the words 'your point?' seemed to fit best.

"So you can't take it back..."

He didn't say anything, but she noticed his eyes were skimming through a list of Japanese kanji's and their meanings. He was still ignoring her.

"And I've heard that the pain is just _so_, unbearable."

Gaara's fingers stilled from turning the page. "Is that so?" He decided to play along.

"Yep." She replied, popping the 'p' at the end.

"Good."

She turned to him so fast, she might have gotten whiplash. "How is feeling excruciating pain a good thing, may I ask?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then answered. "The more it hurts, the more I feel."

She just stared blankly at him like he had sprouted a second head.

"Okay, listen, I know being a masochist is all the rage right now with you... Teens. But inflicting unnecessary pain on yourself, like getting a tattoo is just stup-"

Gaara lifted a finger to her lips to silence her.

Temari slowly closed her mouth, cheeks reddening from babbling like a schoolgirl, something she thought she never was.

"My reasons are my own, and fulfilling masochistic fantasies is not one of them. End of discussion." Gaara continued.

"But-!"

"Ever." Her smile dropped, but the determined glint in her eyes never left.

His sea foam colored eyes narrowed. They stared each other down for a solid minute before Gaara relented and sighed. "Nothing you say is going to change my mind."

_Damn it. _"Fine!"

He returned to look down into the booklet he was seeing. One design had finally popped out from all the rest, and the meaning worked in his favor. Temari grew quiet, too quiet, which had Gaara patiently waiting for her outburst.

_1... 2... 3...-_

"But Seriously!..." she gestured comically at the numerous stations, one station in particular where a man with neon dyed hair was getting inked a bottle of ketchup right across his chest, "A tattoo?! Of all the stupid things you could want for your birthday. A bike, a gun, heck ,even sake- yet you asked for a tattoo?"

"Would you have preferred I asked for porn?" He retorted, his trademark smirk threatening to make an appearance. Temari breathed in and counted to ten then breathed out, an exercise she learned from her therapist. She decided to try from another angle.

"I admit, at some point I wanted to get a tattoo. I wanted mom's name and her favorite flower right here," she gestured fondly to her wrist, "as a reminder of the times we went picking lilies from her garden during the spring, when they bloomed."

"What changed your mind?" Gaara asked, real curiosity laced through his tone.

Temari laughed. "Well dad wouldn't have approved for one. And let's just say the night Kankuro came back wasted with those... _Things_ on his face, and how I had to nurse him afterward, made me think twice about getting it. Plus, I couldn't get over the _obvious_ fact that he had gotten tattooed on his _face_."

He frowned. "What's wrong with getting a tattoo on your face?"

She almost sputtered at the ludicrousy of the situation. _Did she just hear him right? Did he really just ask me that question? Oh hell n-_

"Why, uh... are you thinking about it?" She asked simply.

He didn't answer right away, each second driving a piece of her sanity out the door for an answer. He finally looked at her with a solemn expression and replied just as quietly. "It remains a possibility."

Once he said that, she failed to see the smallest glimpse of a deep sadness within him before he hid any trace of emotion on his face, as she reeled from his startling revelation.

At that moment Kankuro decides to make his appearance after running away from his angry sister, to come upon and even angrier Temari glaring daggers at him. She had a lot of pent up frustration that she needs to let out, and it looks like she is going to have to settle with her imbecile of a brother. _It's his fault anyway_, she thought.

If looks can kill this would be it for Kankuro.

When Temari managed to grab hold of Kankuro in a headlock for a good three minutes while threatening to kill him, and resurrect him only to kill him again, Gaara's voice halted all struggle.

"Does it come in red?"

* * *

. . .

* * *

"So you're actually going through with this." Kankuro stated nonchalantly. Temari glared at him accusingly.

Gaara nodded sagely from his seat in the artist's station. Temari and Kankuro were seated on either side of him as they waited for the person in charge of Gaara's tattoo.

"Why?" Temari asked.

"Why?" He asked questioningly.

The artist came in and began to set out his materials. He pulled out from a drawer three sets of needles, each varying sizes. And from another, he took out alcohol pads, gauze, and a tube of what looked like blood - _red ink_. It was the gun that would be doing the work he took out last.

"Why a tattoo?" She repeated.

"I distinctly remember having this conversation with you."

"Well, enlighten me again then. If you're doing this, I want to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. "

The artist interrupted to ask Gaara what design again, to which the redhead just pointed at a word to the corresponding kanji in his portfolio and then placed it against his left templt.

The artist smiled and mumbled a 'Good choice' for his selection.

"Well?"

The redhead sighed. "Tatau."

"What?" Followed by a "A tata-what?" From Kankuro to their red headed brother.

"Tattoo, or Tatau, means to mark something in Tahitian. It's an art that dates back centuries in Samoan culture, amongst nobles and prisoners, and various tribes; they were used to acknowledge men of their achievements, or to ostracize a group of people as they did in WWII with the victims in the concentration camps. Now tattoos are used for identity, remembrance, decoration and so forth. Tattoos can mean all these things, but at the same time can mean nothing or in my case something entirely different."

"He..." By the way his fists clenched, she can deduce who 'he' was. "Someone once told me that a tattoo is more than a just mark, it's an open wound."

"I always felt pain, in here," He slowly withdrew his hand from its place against his forehead, to place it against his heart. "More so on this day than others." He looked up, his face having aged a decade with sea foam colored becoming of a haunted man, and not of a teenage boy.

"I never got to meet mother, but from what you and Kankuro have told me, she must have been an incredible woman. I understand why... Yashamaru and father loved her so, and why they were never able to share those kind feelings towards me." His hands clenched into tight fists.

"Her death brings me pain, not because I miss her, but because I was never given the chance to be with her."

"Yashamaru's death brings me pain, but for different reasons than mother's. He was my confidant when I had no other. He defended me, and I trusted him... only for him to throw it back into my face when he called me a monster for killing his sister."

"And finally, father," he laughed bitterly," that man lived only to see me bleed and cry as a child. He even told me once that he wished that I have died and mother had lived. The irony of it all is that when he died, he made sure that any chance of redemption I had died with him." He was referring to thick track record he had acquired for being a troubled kid, which wasn't going away anytime soon.

"Three months since his death, yet." he clutched at the fabric of his shirt like a lifeline, his knuckles protruding dangerously as they turned white, a stark comparison to his pale pallor. His voice grew stronger, "Yet, here I am, right where I was all those years ago. A boy, still bleeding... still crying... still in pain. Like I still am carrying-

"An open wound."

He nodded."Like an open wound."

"That's why I want this. I want to remind me to fight for myself, if no one will fight for me. To love myself, if no one will ever love me."

The artist finished organizing his station and was now ready to press the stencil to Gaara's desired location. Gaara move his hand to his left temple again and withdrew it for the art to press the stencil there.

Temari takes a good look at the lettering and leafs through the booklet he found it, smiling softly at it's meaning.

"Love."

Right as the artist turned on his little gun with the first needle used to outline the kanji, Temari stood up yanking Kankuro along with her to the receptionist's desk, leaving Gaara alone as his face began to contort from the pain of the needle against bone.

"We want what he's getting?" She started, gesturing to her little brother who was sitting back with his eyes closed as his artist worked on him.

Kankuro gave her a bewildered look. "What?"

The receptionist quietly told them to take a seat and wait for an available artist to get them.

"Are you out of your mind?" Kankuro whispered warily.

Temari leaned back against the chair and folded her arms. She smiled. "No, for once I'm not, dear brother. Because this... this feels right. And it's about time the Sabaku siblings make a statement together, don't you think?"

Kankuro couldn't wipe his grin after that.

_Remind themselves that there are two other people ready to fight for them, if no one will. That they will always be loved by one another, when no one else will, because that's what siblings do._

A few hours later when the three of them would leave the shop, all sporting matching tattoos, with 'love' on Gaara's forehead, 'love' on Temari's wrist, and 'love' on Kankuro's left butt cheek. Gaara, who would never admit to it, smiled feeling lighter from the outing with his family.

As his brother and sister bragged on who's tattoo hurt the most, Gaara placed a hand over his heart and instantly felt it.

Healed.

**End**

* * *

**A/N: My take on how Gaara got the infamous love kanji on his forehead. **

**Wounds, whether physical or emotional ones, do heal; it just takes time, patience, and care. ****I got my first tattoo over the weekend, and more or less I got it for the same reason Gaara did in my story. But in my case, I wanted to remind myself that things will always even out. Times won't always be good, but times won't always be bad either. Just food for thought.**

**Thanks for reading.**

**Cheers**


End file.
